Crafty stay-at-home Mommy…Everything's Better with Baby!

Now that Lily is 22 months old, she is quite the chatterbox! She is talking all the time and we are having so much fun having her repeat us as well as listening to the words that she is able to come up with on her own! (She still refuses to say her own name, however!)

She knows a lot of her favorite tv show characters: WoWo (grover), Zoe, Ernie, Abby, Mouse (Mickey Mouse), and Bobba (Bob the Tomato).

Her favorite foods that she can ask for are cheese, yoke (yogurt), crackers, seekle (cereal bars), and mook (milk).

She asks us if we are ‘okay?’ and she loves to ‘pay’ with her ball and any phone or mote (remote control)! And one of her favorite games is to call Mommy ‘dada’ and Daddy ‘mama’ and just Laugh about it when we point out her ‘mistake’!!!

I wondered for so long what she would look like, and now I really can’t imagine anything else. Makes me really really curious about what brothers and sisters for her might look like!!

This adorable picture was snapped after getting home from the doctor last week for her 9 month check up and flu shot. Daddy was having to test out his new camera lens that replaced the one that someone *ahem* may have broken a few weeks ago…

This weekend I got to see a friend from high school at her baby shower. She is expecting a precious little girl next month! One good thing about knitting (and crafting of any kind) is that I’m always so excited when I get to make something for a baby!! And no offense to those little boys, but girl things are so much more fun!

I chose pink yarn and only 1 chick for embellishment b/c I wanted it to look ‘springy’ without looking specifically like an Easter hat. I also thought I would try something a little different than the book example and the projects on Ravelry, by keeping the chick the same color as the hat. I think it turned out really well!! I am considering making LM one just like it for her spring hat. The picot edging is so precious and I am happy to say that my embroidery is looking a little better – always a struggle for me!

This was also the first time that I ventured to take LM with me to an event like a baby shower. She loved it – I’m sure all of that extra attention helped!!!

When I first started knitting & crocheting, I was so excited about my new skill that I would make just about everybody something for Christmas, but over the past few years I had to scale back a good bit. I would get overwhelmed and quite frankly, when you have about 20 projects you are trying to complete for Christmas, the fun just disappears!! Especially when there is no way all of the intended recipients, no matter how much they appreciate the gift, can understand the blood, sweat and tears that it requires to choose, knit and complete that many projects!!

So with a new baby in the house this year, that list got scaled back EVEN more! If you received a handknit or crocheted gift from me this year, count yourselves among the lucky few!! Even luckier if you got your gift on time!!!! (There might be a few gifts still on the needles and here we are approaching mid-January!)

I will try and show them all off individually, but this one is definitely the cutest to start: for my little cousin Addy Kate, this adorable Pig from the book, Itty-Bitty Toys. (I’m a big fan of the Itty-Bitty series.)

I’m sure it’s completion was ONLY possible b/c I started this project back in JANUARY to give to her for her 1st birthday. Well that didn’t happen, obviously, so Christmas seemed like the next logical choice and gave me plenty of time to get my knitting mojo back. (Believe me, THAT took a while!)

Project Stats:

Yarn: Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton, Pink – almost an entire skein

Needles: US 3, 3.25 mm

Start Date: January 29, 2011

Finish Date: December 9, 2011

For a while, I was doubtful that this would be the least bit cute when finished, but I am happy to say that it’s more adorable than I could have imagined!! It’s not hard to love a cute pink pig, especially with that curly tail!

(*wonderful* iPhone picture taken after we’d had a sample – ok, a big sample…)

Recipe can be found here. I got a new bundt pan for Christmas so this was a pretty good excuse to try it out today!

My first time trying a sour cream cake. While it is pretty tasty, it’s incredibly dense & not exactly what I was going for. I will be asking my grandmother for her recipe, but if anybody out there has a great one also, I’d love to hear about it!!

I’m pretty new to Pinterest, but in the short time I’ve been a ‘member’ I have found so many adorable and inspiring projects!!! After seeing this project I knew that I wanted to make one for LM’s first Christmas! While I did have to buy the ric-rac I was able to raid my ribbon stash for the remaining ribbon that I needed.

The pants from Gymboree were a perfect match – serendipity! And I promise I am *not* trying to look like a body builder in this picture! Only trying to show off a squirmy baby and her festive onesie!

She’s only worn it once, and the 3-9 month onesie, sadly, started out a TAD too short, but it was fun for opening presents Christmas afternoon and I got the enjoyment out of making her something Christmas-y!! Who knew you could make something so cute with a plain white onesie, some scraps of ribbon and fabric glue!! No sewing required!!

Since New Year’s Resolutions are typically doomed to fail, I am attempting to ‘keep it real’ this year with some fun, reasonable goals! A few of them are:
1. Learn how to use my embroidery/sewing machine
2. Generate some income
3. Knit/Crochet 1 toy/month for Little, starting with 2 for January since I never got to make her Christmas Hippopotamus due to an unwelcome sinus infection!!
4. Maintain my blog!!

Hopefully, since these are things that I WANT to do, I will actually DO THEM!!! That’s half the battle right!?!